Somerset CCC match reports plus occasional articles and poems

A testimonial to good cricket

T20 South Group. Kent v Somerset. 16th August 2018. Canterbury.

“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.” Robbie Burns knew a thing or two. Ask any Somerset supporter. Or consider my attempts to keep up with proceedings at Canterbury where Somerset were trying to hold on to top spot in the T20 Competition South Group in the last round of group matches…

Somerset won the toss and elected to field.

West Somerset to East Kent is too far to travel for a group stage T20 match. So someone bought me a ticket to Marcus Trescothick’s Testimonial Dinner in the 1875 Club which was being held at the same time as the match. I don’t have a smart phone but the person who bought me the ticket was thoughtful enough to send me with someone who does. And then it was announced the match would be televised…

Never mind. I may not get another chance to go to a Trescothick Testimonial dinner. Who knows what I will be doing in 2028. Whereas Somerset can beat Kent anytime…

So off we went and arrived for pre-match, sorry, pre-event drinks in the Stragglers. I have long since concluded that a cricket supporter in search of a score is probably best appeased. The organisers had obviously come to the same conclusion because the match was being shown on the screens and civil unrest was avoided through assurances being quickly given that the screens in the 1875 Club would be on throughout the dinner.

It soon became apparent that cricket supporters can multi-task, at least this one can. Half an eye, or as much as could be spared, on the screen and one and a half plus two ears on the conversation became the order of the evening. Since the person I went with and the people with whom I subsequently shared a table were engaged in the same dual-purpose endeavour we had the perfect combination of a highly entertaining evening and the usual purgatory of watching Somerset play cricket.

It is an odd sensation when you are following a cricket match in a bar without being able to devote your entire attention to it. I missed a lot of the detail: the quick run singles, the brilliant bits of fielding, the bowlers running in. Some of the spectacular fours and any sixes the eye somehow seemed to home in on without being directed. The wickets of course you do tend to see because they are followed by a gasp or a comment by someone else with half an eye on the match and you look up in time to see the replay.

What I did get, trying to follow a cricket match in this way, was a sense of the ebb and flow of the game. The absence of the fine detail seemed to take nothing away from the broader picture. I don’t recall a single ball of Waller’s first over. What stands out in the memory is the overall blanket of austerity imposed on the batsmen by the endlessly unfathomable colour and variety of an over of his bowling. Five for no wicket at the end of his opening over sticks in the mind because that is what the score always is at the end of Waller’s first over. Except when it is a maiden.

That was followed by a growing sense that the Kent batsmen were starting to run away with things as the Somerset pace bowlers took some punishment. I kept my half an eye on the screen, reduced the allocation focused on the person I was talking to one and allocated the other half to watching the rest of the bubbling throng. I was not the only one sneaking a peek at the screen.

Most balls I didn’t see but my half an eye tended to catch the more spectacular, those that bisected or flew over the powerplay infield before crossing the deserted boundaries. At a distance, and with half an eye, the score is difficult to follow because it sits discreetly among a number of other figures at the bottom of the screen. Eventually I took a determined look. After five overs Kent were 58 for 0. Kent were indeed running away with things.

And then a wicket. It was hard to miss a wicket. However interesting the conversation someone will always spot the fall of a wicket and emit a gasp of anguish or relief depending on which side is batting. Even I, in full flow explaining to someone that I saw Trescothick score a brilliant 70 odd at Worcester, picked up that a wicket had fallen. 67 for 1 with still a ball of the powerplay to come wasn’t exactly riches but it was a start. Taylor the bowler, expensive but a wicket at least, and Denly, back in the dugout, looking irritated with himself.

There was no sound with the pictures but when someone whispered, “Bell-Drummond!” you knew someone had got him. Both eyes to the screen. Waller celebrating. 78 for 2 in the eighth over. Hopefully that might slow them a bit I thought and then back to discussing Trescothick’s innings at Worcester.

You knew the inevitable would come at some point, it always does. We were all requested to go upstairs to the 1875 Club to find our table. In the middle of an over. I ask you. We found our table, waited politely for the others allocated to it to arrive and then took our seats. That I had a perfect view of the Trescothick Stand for the entire evening seemed somehow appropriate. That I was enjoying myself to the extent that I absent-mindedly selected a seat with the back of my head facing both screens showed a certain lack of judgement. Foresight in future Farmer. Foresight please.

Trying to watch anything on the screen immediately behind my head was like trying to impress the examiner in a driving test that you really were looking all the way round whilst reversing. Just as uncomfortable and impossible to do furtively. At least I assume they still inflict that on people in driving tests. I took mine before Trescothick was born. Apparently modern cars have cameras facing backwards so you can see the low wall you have just reversed into.

It wasn’t a much less a painful experience watching Kent racking up runs at Canterbury, which incidentally is where I took my driving test during one of my exiles. Except I couldn’t exactly watch the runs. So in between conversations about Somerset’s record against Kent in the T20, calculations about run rate in the event of Kent winning and other things Somerset cricket I allocated the half an eye I had had on the screen in the Stragglers to watching the faces of people who had allocated half of one of their eyes to watching the screen in the 1875 Club.

It is amazing what you can learn from watching someone’s face when they are taking periodic peeks at a match in which you and they are desperately interested. Especially when a wicket falls. The head, at least of anyone who was sneaking a look at the screen at the time, jerks slightly back and, unless it is a Somerset wicket, a smile spreads. As soon as the head went back I risked a peek in the rear-view mirror. No-one seemed to mind. Waller again. 107 for 3 in the 12th. Kuhn gone. Somerset pegging Kent back just a little.

We were into the actual dinner now. Not so easy to follow the cricket when everyone, including you, is thoroughly enjoying a good dinner. It dawned on me after a while that no one had signalled a wicket for some time. Back I went into reversing mode. 16.3 overs. Kent 170 for 3. Ouch! It took a while of staring at the screen to fully register it.

Immediately Blake hit Taylor for four. And we were supposed to be enjoying ourselves, the owner of the redundant smartphone and I. Well, we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, if truth be known, at the event in the 1875 Club. The problem was things were pretty painful in the parallel universe being relayed to us on the screens. “Eyes back to the front. Check what is happening in front of you,” I heard my old driving instructor say.

If I just turned my head slightly over my left shoulder rather than all the way around I could see the screen at the far end of the room. It was a disconcerting experience because every time I did I could hear my old driving instructor in the back of my head, “Look all the way round!”

The far screen was a long way off but close enough to see Overton take the most outrageous boundary catch running right along, and as near on as could be without overstepping, the boundary and staying inside by what feat of balance I know not. Close enough too to see a lot of drying of a wet ball, Taylor bowl two high full tosses and be taken off, and then Overton bowl another as they strove to control what probably resembled a bar of wet soap to complete the over.

“Penalty runs,” someone said. I looked at the clock on the Colin Atkinson Pavilion. 7.25 it said as if in confirmation for the match had started at 7.00. A rear-view swivel for a closer look but there was only confusion on the screen. Eventually six were added to the Kent score. 210 for 5. Then the final over from van de Merwe. Two sixes I saw, all thoughts of furtiveness had gone, 21 from the over, the final score of 231 for 5 suggested Kent had got away from Somerset again at the end. Indeed, Taylor and Overton, against their recent form, had gone for 99 runs in seven overs as Kent used their pace on an excellent batting pitch.

Somerset started dessert with two fours from Davies and a skier from Myburgh which I managed to pick up on the far screen. “Look all the way round,” said the driving instructor. 15 for 1 in the third over according to the screen behind me. No need to look at the numbers on the screen or do a calculation to know the required run rate was rising.

The dessert brooked no resistance and the cricket chat rolled on, and so I must confess the happenings on the screens rather floated by me for a while. One stolen glance at a Calum Hagget over on the far screen showed the ball flying nicely to the boundary as Trego twice, then Davies connected. 73 for 1 after seven overs as I checked behind me. Not quite up with the rate but within range and wickets in hand. Perhaps this would not be the walkover Kent’s 231 for 5 had suggested.

Interview and question time hereabouts. Nick Compton first, then him with Marcus Trescothick. This was a challenge to match my driving test all those years ago. Somerset fighting to end half a decade of defeats against Kent with one of Somerset’s top three batsmen of the last decade due in next and the other two about to speak in front of us. It did indeed test the concentration but proved beyond doubt that, where cricket is concerned at least, I can multi-task.

Two class batsmen and two screens to watch. I turned my chair so I had a view of all four. Unfortunately, I have only been fitted with two eyes. I have to confess to never having read Origin of the Species so I may be wrong but it did seem to me that the evolution of homo sapiens took no account of the requirements involved when Testimonial Dinners and Somerset matches take place at the same time. Is nothing made properly these days?

I have to confess too that my concentration was more on the two batsmen in front of me than on the two on the screens. You can’t miss two key wickets in two overs though. Trego and Davies caught in the deep trying to keep what was a determined run chase on track. 91 for 3 in the 10th over. A very large mountain to climb but with Hildreth and Anderson now in there was hope that it might just be done.

So, we had Hildreth and Anderson in partnership on the screens and Trescothick and Compton in partnership at the front of the room. All the while the exploits of the left and right handers on the screen were played out in the background like some distant cricket match being played on the far side of a valley. Meanwhile the left and right handers at the front of the room held the attention with stories, opinions, chat and cricketing banter with all the ease of a couple of seasoned campaigners.

I became vaguely aware of sixes crossing the darkness of the night sky in Canterbury as some light still held on in the home skies above the Trescothick and Botham Stands. What sixes those skies have seen pass above those two stands I thought; and not least from one of those now holding the floor between duplicate visions of distant Canterbury on the screens.

However engrossed you are you just have to look for the score at some point. You just do. I did a surreptitious blind spot check at the near screen, all that was necessary after I had turned my chair to watch the speakers, and got Anderson out. Why is someone always out just as you check Somerset’s score? I should really know better by now. Better not to know the score than to take a Somerset wicket surely. But you can’t not know the score so you take the wicket. Now please don’t criticise. We’ve all done it.

Anderson had launched a huge skier which seemed to be reaching so high it might have had a message for the gods attached. If so the message fell into the wrong hands, namely the gloved hands of Billings, Anderson gone.

Too soon I thought. 232 was a very long way off but whilst absorbed in what was being said at the front I had totally missed the speed at which Hildreth had been scoring. Some of those sixes had been his. 138 for 4 in the 13th over with less than 100 needed suddenly seemed just about possible or perhaps the atmosphere of the Trescothick testimonial dinner and the presence of the man himself made anything seem possible on a cricket field.

A corner of my eye took unilateral action and focused itself on two numbers at the bottom of the screen. ‘Runs required’ and ‘balls remaining’. Nothing I did would coax it away so I left it to itself and focused the rest of my eyes and all of my ears on the chat and the questions. I willed the chat at the front to go on, ‘balls remaining’ to stand still and ‘runs required’ to plummet. As it was ‘balls remaining’ plummeted whilst in comparison ‘runs required’ seemed to have a parachute now that Anderson was gone.

“Hildy’s gone,” someone said as a question was asked of Trescothick from the floor. “How?” “Got under a high full toss,” someone whispered in reply. Laughter all around. At Trescothick’s answer to the question from the floor that is not at the loss of Hildreth. That was serious. The replay wasn’t clear. The full toss looked high but Hildreth was bending backwards under it to play the stroke. The corner of my eye reported in on the score. 162 for 4. 70 needed from 21 balls. Impossible.

No-one had told Gregory it was impossible. As the questions and answers passed to and fro Gregory’s bat did the same through and across the line of the ball. The corner of the eye sometimes caught the intensity in Gregory’s face, sometimes the audacity of his stroke, sometimes the soaring of the ball but, as the rest of the eyes and the ears took in the conversation between Trescothick and Compton and between them and the floor, the corner struggled to keep up with those two oh so crucial numbers.

Then it followed a ball as it descended down the screen heading for a Gregory six straight on to ‘runs required’ 41, ‘balls remaining’ 12. I had no idea how many Gregory had scored but it seemed he had scored an impossible number and had an impossible number still to get. When someone tries to do the impossible it tends to catch the eye. Or at least I upgraded from a quarter to a whole eye leaving the other one to watch for answers to the final couple of questions from the floor.

The 19th over seemed to go on interminably as overs always do at moments of high tension. They go on even longer with wides, no balls, Gregory and Abell sending balls to the boundary, and Trescothick’s answer to the last question of the evening being as perfectly timed as one of his cover drives. It was a lot for a simple supporter to take in. Impossible now to recall the detail with one eye focused on the cricket and the other on the front of the room but I do remember 18 were needed off the final over.

A thank you and a genuinely warm round of smiling applause for Trescothick and Compton for it had been that sort of evening: great cricket talk, great cricket fun, great Somerset cricket food and, if you could spare the corner of an eye, great Somerset cricket. Perfect.

Oh yes and Somerset lost by five runs out of 458 after Gregory and Abell had scored 64 in the last three and a half overs. The difference between the sides being the six run time penalty given to Somerset, or the one not given to Kent depending on your viewpoint. You don’t get much closer than that and you won’t get a better cricketing evening.

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‘Farmer White’ Somerset Cricket Writing

The purpose of this website is to provide a location where the collected cricket writing of ‘Farmer White’, most of which is published on diverse ‘threads’ on grockles.com, an independent Somerset cricket website, can be accessed and read in one location.

The posts which appear on this site have been edited to remove some errors and some repetition which can occur especially when a post, as most were, were written at pace immediately after a match and well into the early hours of the morning.

For the same reason the flow of the original text has been improved in some places and occasionally re-ordered. However the substance and style of the original posts remain unaltered. The original posts are still available on grockles.com.

A paragraph in italics has been added before most posts to set some brief context for the post. After each match report, also in italics, a summary scorecard of each day’s play has been added.

‘Farmer White’ will continue to post future match reports on grockles.com as well as on this site.

In addition to reporting on the cricket ‘Farmer White’ reports may contain opinion and try to reflect the atmosphere of the match. ‘Farmer White’ also writes about the experience of being a Somerset supporter whether at a match or not.

In addition to match reports the site contains articles and poems related to Somerset cricket all written by ‘Farmer White’. Further examples are added from time to time.

Match reports on every day of Championship cricket in 2018 are now in place. August.

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‘Farmer White’

17th March 2019

‘Farmer White’

‘Farmer White’, the author of this site, was brought up on the story of one of Somerset’s greatest cricketers, JC ‘Farmer’ White; of how his slow left arm bowling was the epitome of accuracy and that he captained England.

An indelible impression was made and, as indelible impressions do, it has remained with him.

When, at the end of the 2016 season, he began to post reports and occasional articles and poems on threads on grockles.com and needed a posting name ‘Farmer White’ was the natural choice.

JC ‘Farmer’ White 1891-1961

JC ‘Jack’ or ‘Farmer’ White played for Somerset CCC from 1907-37. He captained the side from 1927-31.

He remains the County’s leading First Class wicket taker with 2167 at an average of 18.02. He took 100 First Class wickets in a season 14 times.

With the bat he scored six centuries and scored 1000 runs in a season twice.

He took 381 catches.

He played in 15 Tests for England and captained England four times.

In the 1928-9 Ashes series he was England’s top wicket taker with 25.

In the Adelaide Test he took 13 for 256 in 124.5 overs and England won by 12 runs.

‘FARMER WHITE’ ON CRICKET

To locate the post in which a quote appears click the post title located immediately beneath the quote.

“And then, as at the end of the last match of every season, there was the reluctance of many to leave their seats as they watched, across an empty outfield, the memories of the season past. Better memories for Somerset supporters than for Nottinghamshire ones this year.”Notts v Som CC1 Day 3 26th Sep 2018“Winter well”

“Those modes of dismissal summed up the different characters of the bowling of Overton and Gregory. The one seemingly forcing his way through defences to snatch wickets. The other quietly purloining them from unwary batsmen.”Notts v Som CC1 Day 2 25th Sep 2018Business end

“This was Hildreth at his glorious, apparently carefree, but doubtless intensely focused best. As the clouds gathered in they might have been the chariots of gods come to see who was creating such perfection in the imperfect world below.”Notts v Som CC1 Day 1 24th Sep 2018Of genius and the sublime

“Somerset 4 for 2. And then Hildreth. Hildreth did what Hildreth does. An on driven boundary of perfection off his first ball.”
Som v Surrey CC1 Day 3 20 Sep 2018Fighting hard

“They be too good for we,” the comment from across the aisle. There was perhaps more truth in that than even the speaker, who I find to be perceptively knowledgeable about cricket, realised.”
Som v Surrey CC1 Day 2 19 Sep 2018Somerset under the weather

“Somerset in the field were exemplified by Abell at cover. I lost count of the number of times a ball flew off the bat with ‘four’ written all over it only to find itself snared by Abell’s electrifying dives.”Som v Surrey CC1 Day 1 18 Sep 2018Surrey on the road

“If momentum means anything we have a chance,” someone said, and Somerset had picked up momentum at the end of the Sussex innings as fast as the Bungee Blast was shooting people into the air. Whether Somerset could turn the match on its head as the bungee did its rotating victims was another matter.”
Som v Sussex T20 SF 15 Sep 2018 All Wright on the night

“When you are at a match and a Test-class fast bowler gets it right at pace and settles into a wicket-taking rhythm in helpful conditions on a helpful pitch it is as if a force of nature has been unleashed on the batsmen.”
Hants v Som CC1 Day 2 11 Sep 2018A test of class

“On the way back to the car my white wyvern hat attracted another Somerset supporter. It does that. “38 for 3 the last I heard,” he said, “What is going on?” “It’s worse than that,” I replied, “we were 72 for 5 at Lunch.” It was worse than that. “Not us. Them,” he replied. “They are 38 for 3. We were 106 all out.”
Hants v Som CC1 Day 1 10 Sep 2018Seam from a distance

“I don’t know how much apprehension a human being is supplied with at birth but I have used up enough to fill one of those super tankers that are so difficult to to turn around just watching Somerset.”
Som v Lancs CC1 Day 2 5 Sep 2018Four days tied up in two

“After Lunch, Leach got to work. He started to pick away at the batsmen like an examiner picks away at students who have not done their revision.”
Som v Lancs CC1 Day 1 4 Sep 201822 wickets and 298 runs in Stygian Gloom

“To see one Overton in full flow is a sight worth the seeing. To see both in full flow and in tandem is a sight to treasure.”Yorks v Som CC1 Day 4 1 Sep 2018Yorkshire outpaced

“The Yorkshire crowd cannot be faulted for its impartiality when judging the cricket. Even a loud lbw appeal against Hildreth playing well forward met with the response, “No. Thee can’t gi’ that. He’s too far forrard.”Yorks v Som CC1 Day 3 31 Aug 2018Perfect day

“The comments of opposition supporters, as a match unfolds, sit on the opposite end of the emotional seesaw to where your own feelings sit. At Headingley the frequency of the comments keeps the seesaw constantly in motion.”
Yorks v Som CC1 Day 2 30 Aug 2018Not too bad a day

“The gentlest of gentle bat movements produced rocket like power in the ball as it skimmed the outfield and crossed the boundary directly in front of me. “Just look at that,” another Yorkshire voice drooled.”
Yorks v Som CC1 Day 1 29 Aug 2018Cavalcade

“It was as if the Gillette Cup had passed through a time warp and come to visit. The atmosphere had the feel of those days again. And the match had the feel of the great cup runs of the 70s and 80s.”
Som v Notts T20 QF 27 Aug 2018Gregory’s game

“This was a significant victory not just in the context of this season but in marking the continuing development of what has the potential to become one of the all-time great Somerset teams, perhaps, just perhaps, the greatest of them all.”
Som v Essex CC1 Day 4 22 Aug 2018A match for the ages

“The Essex horse was loose in the paddock with no-one apparently able to close the gate other than Leach and it is too big a job for one man.”
Som v Essex CC1 Day 3 21 Aug 2018Of stable doors

“Davey has emerged as a genuine front line bowler to be reckoned with this season. No longer a man dependent on April green tops for his wickets. The ball with which he bowled Westley was as good as any you will see.”
Som v Essex CC1 Day 2 20 Aug 2018Bowled over

“The talk at the back of the Somerset Pavilion (elevated) was of Peter Wight. Of Peter Wight and Fred Trueman. Of the day in 1962 when Fred Trueman arrived late for the Championship match at Taunton and was sent home by the Yorkshire captain for his pains.”Som v Essex CC1 Day 1 19 Aug 20181962 all over again

“As I left after the match I spoke to a couple who might have watched Somerset in the 1950s and probably did. Neither of them had ever watched T20 before. “A great match,” they said, “and the fielding is a level above.”
Sur’y v Som T20 S Group 10 Aug 2018A stellar match

“Van de Merwe examined the batsmen with the accuracy of a dentist probing with a drill. He imposed the same disinclination to make any rash movements on the batsmen as a dentist does on a patient.”
Hants v Som T20 S Group 8 Aug 2018A Rye look at the cricket

“The light relented and after Tea out into this frozen wasteland the rules of cricket demanded the players return.”
Som v Yorks CC1 Day 2 29 Apr 2018Somerset’s Arctic expedition

” There is no need to use superlatives because it was a superlative innings full of its own superlatives.”
Som v Yorks CC1 Day 1 28 Apr 2018A century for lunch

I remember watching Basil D’Oliviera play and not just at the end of his career. Now I was watching his grandson. ‘Fugit inreparabile tempus’ as Virgil had it. ‘It escapes, irretrievable time” as the all-knowing internet translates it.”
Som v Worcs CC1 Day 3 22 Apr 2018 At last

“One of the things about catching up on 43 years while trying to watch the cricket is you miss the odd thing. Sometimes you miss a year, sometimes you miss a wicket. I missed Abell’s.”
Som v Worcs CC1 Day2 21 Apr 2018Hildreth takes it away

“The first day of Somerset’s 2018 season. It started disastrously. The patisserie on Paddington Station where I used to start my journeys to Taunton during the years of my eastern exile had gone.”
Som v Worcs CC1 Day 1 20 Apr 2018Renshaw drives hard